CHICAGO MATTERS: History

The Chicago Matters series is initiated and funded by The Chicago Community Trust, metropolitan Chicago's community foundation. Thousands of people have used the Trust to put their charitable dollars to work for the benefit of area residents, through grant making and special projects. Chicago Matters, which has examined issues such as aging, violence, and religion and their impact on our community, is one of these projects.

WBEZ Chicago Public Radio began collaborating with the Trust in 1991. At that time, WTTW11 was working solely on the project. Bruce Newman, the executive director of the Trust, thought that both WBEZ Chicago Public Radio and WTTW11 had "such respect in the community, such outstanding creative staff, that they're the perfect vehicles to look at issues that are important to the people in the community."

Chicago Matters has afforded Chicago Public Radio the opportunity to explore one issue in tremendous depth each year. Large blocks of air time are devoted to reporting, analyzing, and discussing key issues and their impact on the Chicago area. Before collaborating in the series, the station had never done documentary work. With Chicago Matters, Chicago Public Radio established a documentary presence and gained expertise in producing in-depth stories. The documentaries, produced by both locally and nationally recognized producers, have received national and international awards.

In addition to documentaries, the series has grown to include shorter reports, personal essays, extended discussions, and town meetings.

During the second year of Chicago Public Radio's participation (1993), the series focused on "race." With this series, a unique type of documentary — one based on audio diaries — became an established method for producing documentary work. The first of these documentaries was Ghetto Life 101. It received seven accolades including a Prix Italia premio especiale per un documentario radiofonico, The Corporation for Public Broadcasting's Gold Award for Best Documentary, and The Society for Professional Journalists Best Radio Documentary.

That same year the station received grant monies to produce the broadcasts for Chicago Matters using digital editing equipment. Consequently almost all editing at Chicago Public Radio changed to digital.

During the 1993 series, Chicago Public Radio identified the need to explore ways to broaden its audience and, subsequently, joined with WVON for a weekly two-hour simulcast. Access to Chicago Matters broadcasts also increased when the entire series became available for loan at the Chicago Public Library beginning in 1993 and more recently at selected suburban locations.

When Chicago Matters focused on violence in 1994, Chicago Public Radio teamed with Hispanic radio station WOPA to air a bilingual broadcast discussion. This broadcast was due to the growing concern about violence in the Hispanic community. The following year the series focused on immigration, and Chicago Public Radio and WTTW11 co-produced a program that reviewed cultural diversity through music. The result was a simulcast titled World Stage Chicago, a musical celebration of Chicago's immigrant past and present, which received a local Emmy.

For the 1997 series, Chicago Matters: What's Working, The Chicago Reporter was a special contributor. In What's Working a number of timely issues on life in and beyond the workplace were explored by each of these collaborators through their various formats. Chicago Public Radio looked at "working" through in-depth reports and personal essays, half-hour documentary specials including "Picture Me Rolling: Young, Black, and at the Crossroads of the American Dream," and community forums. Some of the many topics investigated included "The Meaning of Work," "Diversity in the Workplace," "Routes Out of Poverty," and "Retirement: Thoughts on the End of Work."

During the What's Working series Chicago Public Radio set up community forums for the first time. A total of four were held: one in the Chicago's Austin community on unemployment and job creation; at the University of Illinois, Chicago Campus on careers; at the Loyola Medical Center in Maywood about how the medical professions are changing; and at the Chicago Public Radio studios about balancing work and family. Over 200 people attended the forums.

The 1998 series, Chicago Matters: Our Region Our Community examined how we relate to one another within our region, and the challenges and opportunities that face us all. Chicago Public Radio kicked off the series with a special live event, "A Sense of Belonging." Held at Hyde Park's Court Theatre, this unique program featured essays, memoirs, and short stories about community written by Chicago-area authors and read by local actors. Selections were later aired on Chicago Public Radio.

For Our Region Our Community, Chicago Public Radio also aired six, thirty-minute documentaries by award-winning producers. Reports, personal essays, and commentaries were broadcast regularly. And, two town meetings were held and then broadcast — "Gentrification in Pilsen: Who Wins, Who Loses?" and "Does Our Region Need a Third Airport?"

Examining Health was the topic in 1999. Chicago Public Radio produced twelve essays, twenty reports, six half-hour documentaries, two town meetings, and one special event. The special event was held at the Museum of Contemporary Art and featured the voices of high school students expressing their health concerns. For the first time, the entire series, including information about contributing experts, was made available on the Chicago Public Radio website, including Audio On-Demand.

During 2000, Seeking Justice was the focus of Chicago Matters. Against a backdrop of accusations of racial profiling in two Chicago suburbs, a statewide moratorium on the death penalty, and unprecedented numbers of African-American men and women behind bars, Chicago Public Radio presented a series of twenty reports, twelve essays, six documentaries, and two town meetings. The series covered issues as diverse as the rapidly growing prison industry and marriage rights for same-sex partners. The on-air broadcasts, as well as photographs and additional information, were also made available to listeners on the Chicago Public Radio website.

As part of the Seeking Justice series, we teamed up with the Chicago Reporter for Chicago Public Radio's first investigative series of reports. The result of this collaboration was 1,000 Feet, which uncovered a discriminatory drug law and received the Edward R. Murrow Award for best investigative report.

Education Matters, the 2001 Chicago Matters series, took a broad look at our education system and efforts to improve it. Bilingual and special education, home-schooling and charter experiments, and achievement and funding gaps were some of the topics addressed during this series. The series included a town meeting, broadcast live on Chicago Public Radio, about the academic achievement gap in Evanston's schools.

In 2002, Chicago Matters produced InsideHousing. 2002 turned out to be a benchmark year in the efforts of affordable housing activists to coalesce around the lack of affordable housing in the Chicago area. Our series held a lively town hall meeting on the pros and cons of gentrification in the Lincoln Square neighborhood, where many senior residents complain of being taxed out of their homes. One documentary stuck with Chicago Housing Authority (CHA) residents as the city’s plan for transformation moved them out of their homes. Chicago Matters took the measure of class conflict in the south suburbs and profiled a family that couldn't make their mortgage. In a takeoff on the personal essay, writer Alex Kotlowitz and producer Amy Dorn teamed up to produce Chicagoans' personal stories about home, told in their own words. These “Stories of Home” won the prestigious Peabody Award, the second in the station's history. Dan Collison's documentary, “The House of Pain,” won the Edward R. Murrow regional and national awards for best news documentary. In other documentaries Chicago Public Radio considered what it feels like to be a homeless child, and the life of an urban nomad. The housing issues raised in this series remain relevant today. Visit our audio library to listen to the series.

In 2003, Chicago Matters was on hiatus.

In 2004, Chicago Matters: Our Next Generation focused on youth in the Chicago region, ages 11 to 22. The series explored how civic life, economic markets, popular culture, the educational system, even the built environment—all are being changed in subtle and dramatic ways by today's young people.

Our Next Generation provided not only a mirror for youth to validate their reality, but also a framework for other generations to understand it. We examined serious issues facing young people today, but we also celebrated many positive ways youth are contributing to society.

Our mentorship reports allowed young reporters to investigate issues of concern to them and report back to us. The documentary Out Here on My Own, about the experiences of two young women “aging out” of the foster care system prompted listeners to convene at the station to discuss how they could be of help. One of our personal stories about a young man who was kicked out of his home because he was gay drew a similar outpouring of sympathy and offers of help from our listeners. Our Next Generation was a window into the world of young people. Looking at issues facing youth resulted in a series that was both illuminating and emotionally engaging. The series was awarded the 2005 Edward R. Murrow best news series by the Radio-Television News Directors Association, as well as the Peter Lisagor award for Exemplary Journalism, in-depth reporting. We encourage you to listen to this coverage on our Website.

This year Chicago Matters chose a topic that that influences every aspect of our lives in myriad ways: money. Money is at once a public and private issue and one that is integral to a discussion of social justice issues affecting the Chicago area, such as race and poverty. In Chicago Matters: Money Talks we heard the personal stories of Chicagoans struggling to escape personal debt, and reported on the difficulties of planning for retirement. We looked at the economics of developing energy efficient buildings, and the cost of hiring a qualified public school teacher. From a personal story by a politician about the ethics of raising campaign funds to a report on what couples are willing to do to pay for the cost of adopting a child, Chicago Matters: Money Talks hoped to provoke thoughtful discussions about how we relate to money.

This year's documentaries ranged from an examination of why young people would take a vow of poverty to what constitutes a compulsive shopper. One documentary by Peabody Award-winning producer Lex Gillespie finds local banks turning their attention to the Latino immigrant market and making loans to illegal immigrants to purchase homes. Another documentary, Chicago Hustles travels the city in search of ways that people make a living “underground” and comes up with some surprising situations, including a drug dealer who doesn't know how to get rid of his cash.

Our Chicago Matters mentorship reports were another highlight of the series. Talented new reporter Jemimah Noonoo looked into how the Chicago-Ghanaian community goes about raising money for a Ghanaian funeral—a report that was rebroadcast by the national program, The World. Another young mentorship reporter, Dulce Maria Mora, followed Latino day laborers to work and chronicled the difficulties of living on such meager wages. We encourage you to listen to these reports, and recommend someone you know to become a mentorship reporter for our next series.

Through the various formats—reports, personal essays, commentaries, documentaries, extended discussions, and town meetings—Chicago Matters provides more than information. The series also gives a voice to members of the Chicago community and makes communication possible between people who normally don't speak to one another. Through this process Chicago Public Radio has become an aural “town hall,” strengthening the community through the sharing and exchange of ideas.

As we look ahead to topics for our next special series on Chicago Public Radio, we hope you'll participate. Send us your ideas for issues you think are important for us to cover. Send them to me, Julia McEvoy, executive producer of the series at jmcevoy@ChicagoPublicRadio.org.

Johanna Zorn was the executive producer of Chicago Matters from 1991 through 2001.
Julia McEvoy has been executive producer of the series since 2002.

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